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Things changed very quickly for Harley Keener after his Ordeal

Okay, his Ordeal had been wild enough. Iron Man had needed his help. He had fixed the Iron man suit.

By the time winter break ended, Harley, his mom, and his sister were living in Queens in an apartment that was way nicer than their old house had ever been. His mom had a job at a Stark subsidiary and he was enrolled in the magnet school that would prepare him for Midtown Middle STEM Academy.

Frankly, Harley was more than a little frightened. Forget having been face to face with Aldrich Killian, elementary school kids were mean. He knew his accent was really different from the ones the kids had around here, and frankly, his interests in building and fixing things had made him a bit of nerd in his own school. Tony had assured him that it wouldn’t be like that here, that this was a school for smart kids, but there was book smart and then there was hands smart, the way Harley saw it, and he knew which one he was.

The apartment was cool though. It had four bedrooms, and the fourth bedroom had been turned into kind of a combination craft room/workshop for the Keener family to use on their projects. Mom’s sewing table was in one corner of the room, another part had enormous rolls of paper for Harley and his sister to draw, and there was even a 3D printer, which Harley knew wasn’t even for sale yet.

Harley loved it, really, even if he was a little lonely. He was sure he’d get over it. Still. He was watching Brave with his sister for the twelfth time when his mom came in from the craft room, staring at her phone with bemusement. “Harley, darlin’,” she told him. “Mr. Stark says that if you go down to apartment 318, there’s someone you might like to meet. I think you’ll be okay to go by yourself.” Harley reached over and poked Abby in the ribs. “Catch you later, ladybug,” he told her. “Adios,” she replied, clearly having picked up some vocabulary from Dora.

The outside of the apartment was pretty nondescript, although it had a very serious looking series on the door. He knocked anyway, and hoped that Mr. Stark had told whoever this was to expect him. Even knowing Mr. Stark though, he was totally taken aback by the man who answered the door.

“You must be Harley,” Captain America said, his voice friendly and warm. “Call me Steve,” he offered a giant hand, which Harley took and shook with a feeling of shock. “Nice to meet you, sir,” Harley said, not letting his best manners desert him. Captain America rolled his eyes a little helplessly, clearly not wanting to be mean about it. “Peter,” he called over to the couch. “Could you come over here and speak modern American youth on my behalf?” Laughing, another boy, about Harley’s age, rose from the floor, where he was building something with a complicated-looking construction set.

“Hi! You must be Harley! Steve heard about you from Tony! I’m Peter Parker, and I think we’ll be going to the same school next week!” Harley had never met anybody who used so many clear exclamation points in his spoken sentences before. Peter reached out to shake Harley’s hand, and there was a little bit of a jolt when their fingers met. Just static, he thought, but then he heard Peter’s softly murmured, “Dai stiho,” and blinked a few times in shock. “Steve isn’t a wizard,” Peter explained, “but he’s a good friend.”

“Also apparently the world’s most reliable babysitter,” Steve joked. “Except when the world needs saving.”

#spider wizard #peter parker #harley keener #children at the gate